THE FINGER OF FATE.
I am going to give you an instance of the desperately strong measures Fate will take in order to bring about an event she has set her mind on.
I am a middle-aged bachelor, of staid and careful habits. I am pretty comfortably "off," having an independent income of £400 a-year, and a Civil Service pension of £700 a-year. I was for many years Secretary of the Warrant Officers' Shirt-frill and Shaving-Soap Department, a branch office under the Admiralty, Somerset House.
I have led a quiet and retired life—shunning society in its gayest sense, and associating intimately with three or four other heads of subordinate departments, and with no one else. I am naturally nervous, and, I am afraid, irritable. I hate bright colours, unnecessary conversation, useless noises—such as vocal and instrumental music, and the neighing of horses—and I can't bear to see people in quick motion. If I had my way, no one should speak to me except on matters of pure business, and only then when the communication could not be conveniently reduced into the form of a memorandum. Above all other things, I detest forward
